joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BttLQZ6R7B0

Tony Northrup was criticized by some self proclaimed photography experts in his video about total light and sensor size.

Watch this and learn.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Interesting

Gablercigars

Best explanation I have seen.... Thanks!

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

I think TN is smarter than his critics think.

47greyfox Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range

I never had an issue with the TN original YouTube video that got everyone so fired up. To my simple mind, applying the factor made sense. So, for me, I use the philosophy of if I can frame the image I want and and there’s enough light, I’m happy. I rarely use the phone unless it’s the only “camera” I have for the moment. My little arsenal consists of a Canon S100, G16, SX60 HS, 7d2, 6d2, and a Sony a6000. Unless on travel, what I grab is totally dependent on what I hope to accomplish.

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

It took me a while to accept it but eventually I caught on.

Your philosophy is right on target. It has no bearing on actual use...it just applies to comparing different size sensors and their respective lenses.

MattPhox Loc: Rhode Island

Good post.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I know that the camera manufacturers started the whole discussion around crop factor years ago. But I have felt, and still do feel, that for 95% of folks, it is a topic that results in a lot of wasted energy. The only think that anyone really needs to keep in mind is the approximate focal length of a "normal" lens on the camera that they are using. So remembering 35mm for all of the APSC cameras, 50mm for the "full frame" cameras, and whatever the number is for your 4/3 or 1" or whatever camera is all you really need to keep in mind. And it doesn't matter if you calculate the diagonal sensor dimension as 47mm or some other number than exactly 50mm...it just doesn't matter in any meaningful sense. There are a lot of other more important pieces of information that are much more meaningful to you and much more deserving of a memory location in your brain. Anything less than "normal" represents a wide angle field of view and anything more represents telephoto. If your camera has an APSC sensor, it doesn't matter what any of these values are for a full frame or any other camera. And keeping track of the trivial difference between a Nikon sensor and a Canon sensor is a total waste of precious memory cells. That difference does not matter.

There is a bit of an exception if you are actively shooting a mix of sensor formats at the same time, but even that should be managed in a manner that does not cause stress. For instance, I have several camera bodies, but I have three that I sometimes use together, because they are very similar and work well together and produce very compatible images. They are a D500, a D810, and a D850. I generally (but not always) have a 14-24mm on the D810 (because the high resolution helps capture the small details captured using a wide angle), a 70-200mm on the D850 (because the high resolution gives me room to crop if I really needed a slightly longer lens) and a 17-55mm on the D500 (because it almost exactly fills the gap when used on the APSC camera). So yes, I do need, on a one-time basis, to be able to multiply some numbers by 1.5 or divide some other numbers by 1.5 to verify that the 17-55 "fits." But that's it. When shooting, I just think of wide, normal, and telephoto. I never think about crop factor. Complete waste of time and energy.

So in my experience, this whole topic just creates a lot of unnecessary stress and distracts a large number of photographers from things that are a lot more important to learn and understand. I think the fundamental insignificance is what leads to all of the disagreement and misunderstanding. My suggestion is to just drop it and quit worrying.

Sunnely Loc: Wisconsin

Hmm...

For simplicity and for the sake of my limited and already overloaded noggin neurons, this explanation makes more sense to me.

Thanks, larryepage.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

So, if I put an FX lens on a DX camera it will let in more light - nonsense. This guy is as misguided as Tony Northrup. BTW, I had an exchange with TN a while back over his understanding and misapplication of the notion of perceptual megapixels. I sent DXO a list of questions that reflected TN's representation of what PmP meant without naming names - and they totally debunked his BS. I am no expert, but I know BS when I see/hear it.

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

Something over looked. When choosing a lens for your crop sensor you may want to consider the ramifications of the widest aperture on the image regarding DOF, Noise and potential use of an extender.
A wider aperture will give better results, that is if you care.

Gablercigars

The one time benefit for me to understanding the crop factor was a kind of re-assurance that I did not make a mistake in my recent purchase of a 4/3 system as opposed to a full frame. I like the smaller size and weight of the body and lenses in my hand and in my backpack.


With regard to composing a shot, I most often use a 12-100 zoom, (24-200 in full frame), and no thought is required as to which lens would be "normal" as a 50mm would be on a full frame, just twist and shoot.


This discussion is probably only useful on a site like this because we like to talk about it!

Ollieboy

TN makes perfect sense to me on this subject. FF lenses may let more light in, but I'm guessing about 30% of the light is not hitting the cropped sensor due to it's size.

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

Refer back to the video and you will find that is erroneous. The author used templates sized to the different sensor for this test to duplicate the amount of light the sensor receives.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I am familiar with the current bokeh fad. But when I learned photography we were taught to frame our images without distractions in the background, and I still strive to shoot that way. And yes, when shooting birds and wildlife, that is not possible, but I don't shoot those subjects.

In any case, managing depth of field dynamically is already a problem for anyone using a zoom lens, so managing the difference between, say, 50mm and 70mm should be no big stretch.